======== SAMPLE 1 ======== his back. He felt a hand rest atop his shoulder, the same hand that had settled on the armband. The Endbringer had decided to come after him? He’d hoped the armband would inform him if he was about to die. It had given him pause. If he died, he’d lose his family. Not the Endbringers, but his own kind. His own people. It was something he had warned his family about. Something he’d tried to avoid reporting to his family and loved ones. He’d been prepared to put all of the advantages of a greater knowledge of who and what he was up against aside for the sake of keeping his cool. He was prepared to take far less than he should if he had to. He’d had enough time to prepare. He had knowledge. This was something else. He felt the blade move, the claw tap against his chest. A warning call. His chest felt like it was in rough shape, pain a distant second in front of the pain of his own breathing. ■ "Weaver," the voice sounded. He turned to see the man who’d appeared on the balcony, a thin man, with dark hair and a mop of brown hair. "Arbiter," the thin, young man said. He sounded more like a college student than a veteran cape, though the lines of his voice were markedly different. "Which means your father’s either going to be very angry indeed with you, or very very quiet." "Call me Rime," the thin young man in black said. "I only want to talk to you as my sister would." "You can talk to me as a sister, but you won’t be able to communicate with me as a a free agent. We tried a couple of times, and every time we got a response from her, the agent just kept on getting in your way. I thought we might have to explain to our client, but she’s as smart as she is, and her father is a very bad father. So we’re going to do the opposite, and start a dialogue that isn’t a dialogue at all. Her father, by the way, if you care to listen." Rime turned her attention his way. Her hair was tied back in a messy ponytail, and her eyes were narrow and angry. "You’re the one who’s going to talk, in case there’s a need," Arbiter said. She sounded a little too pleased with herself. "I’m the one saying the words. You’ll start off by saying they’re not what they appear to be." "If this is about the powers, then we have a problem," Rime said. Arbiter didn’t reply. Instead, she turned the volume all the way down. "No powers?" "You’ve seen it all, are you really the one who gets to dictate what happens in my stories?" "Yes," Rime said. "But if it’s about attitude, attitude only. We won’t be fighting. I know some people are looking for a fight, and they call us both monsters, but I’d rather we avoided that fight." "What about the injury?" Rime touched her arm, and it flared hot. Before she could reply, the volume abruptly stopped. "It’s not a problem in the slightest," Arbiter said. She looked up, meeting Rime’s eyes. "I’ve only done one injury, and that was taking a blow to the head. I’m rather confident I’m a good enough tinker that I won’t do anything worse." "I’m a little afraid to tell you," Rime said. She let go of the arm, then gestured to the front of her costume. "I’m not a little girl anymore." A monster? "No," Rime said. Her voice was quiet, but her body was tense. "Not anymore. You can’t blame me." "Maybe you can," Arbiter replied. Then, as she reached the side of her costume, she added, "I’ve still got two left over from the fights. Let’s cook them up first. I’ll heat them up, then I’ll feed them to the birds." "Birds?" Rime asked. Her expression changed, and her eyes went wide. Her hand flew to her mouth. "Enough," Arbiter said. She shut her eyes ======== SAMPLE 2 ======== his head. "I’m going to have to ask Tattletale to leave," I said, "She’s being mean." "Yeah," Tattletale said, standing from her seat. She offered me a hand in steadying myself, and I took it, leaning against the wall to avoid drawing her attention. The way she moved, it was unnatural, and it wasn’t all that good for my already battered and bruised ego. We were joined by the other Undersiders, who were waiting in a half-circle. Rachel was sporting a short cape, and her dog, Bentley, was in excellent shape. "I’m not your enemy," I said. "I know," Rachel said, raising her voice. Rachel and Bentley cocked their heads quizzically. I suspected that was because they weren’t used to hearing or speaking out loud. "Why are you here?" I asked. I could see the tension in the other members of the group. Rachel shrugged. "My dad wants me to come to the boardwalk. It’s what he wants. My mom wanted me to come, too. It’d be the best present he could ever give me." "It’s not a good present," Miss Militia said. She sounded a little offended. "It’s all been screwed up," I said. "All of us involved." "It isn’t just you," Tattletale said. "Mom, dad, me, Miss Militia. Everybody else." Rachel nodded. I looked at the others. Miss Militia was glaring at us, the dogs were nervous and Silent Stalker was more or less silent, and Piggot was pretty grim. The Protectorate and the Wards were all present, but the PRT officers and the Wards were most definitely not. "We’re still fighting," Triumph said. "Not over the board, but we’re fighting." "You’re not the sort of person who fights in open combat," Tecton said. "Not so much over there, anyways." "Dragon," I said. "What?" "The Dragon suits." "Dragon has prisoners." "No," I said. "These people aren’t anything special. Dragon decided she could get to all of us. Maybe she already did, but we’re the ones with super strength and invulnerability to any hits we take. And the Dragon suits have super strength and invulnerability to any hits they take… and the prisoners are fucking terrifying." Miss Militia stared at me. I sighed a little. "Took all of us. Except for the one hostage." "And he’s more vulnerable?" Miss Militia asked. "His spinal column is thick, his muscles atrophy, byproducts of his lab work with me. And the only thing we can do to fix him is to kill him, so long as he’s on the table. The Dragon suits can take a lot of punishment. Maybe if we give them a little more time to negotiate the best deal and escape, we can arrange a slower death, perhaps by stunning or lethal injection." "We could haul him out with a team," I said. "The Wards, the Protectorate, the rest of our team. It might even work. We’d be swapping places, we’d be able to ward off the suits, let Dragon do what she does best… but we’d be dying." "We’d be gambling on it," Tecton said. "Not betting against a Dragon. You were ahead by one, there’s no mistake about it. If we’re even a fraction of a second behind our enemy, this is a pretty big advantage. We have time to do something else. Let’s throw that into the fight, instead of waiting." "But this advantage… if we’re caught, dead, then nobody has a reason to go after us," Miss Militia said, eyeing the people who were still in the factory. Nobody had reason to go after the Undersiders, with their gangs and criminal enterprises, and the only people who would go after them would be stupid or downright mean, depending on the circumstances. If we were caught, well, the PRT would have a reason not to give us a fair shake, and they could be getting desperate, looking to do something to regain control of the city. Miss Militia looked at Tecton. He frowned. Then he looked at me. "I think I know the rest of this. We take the critical step of going to one of the Dragon-suits, I don’t think it’s ======== SAMPLE 3 ======== his power, though it hadn’t been present when we’d started, and it was weaker now that it was gone. I didn’t like the way this reminded me of Coil. It reminded me of Mannequin. I didn’t like that it was vague and unsure. It was time to act. I sent my bugs out from the armor, concentrating on a single area at a time. They landed where they were needed, and then I started drawing them out from the surrounding area. Every bug that was on the roof’s edge, every near invader that was moving around the edge of the swarm, I sent out to attack, to fill the area with biting, stings and deadly venom. When that wasn’t enough, I sent them out to scout, searching the areas where the enemy hadn’t been. The bugs filtered out, and I began using silk to bind and gag the ones that were too large, too smart or too tough to kill on their own. I found some that were too dangerous to leave behind. I bit them, controlled them, and then sent them after the enemy that was still standing. They were still waiting around the corner when I finished, biting and stinging. There were a lot of bugs, and I needed to keep all of them contained, so I formed the plan into a swarm decoy, crowded them into the storm sewers and the storm drains, and sent them into the headquarters and the rest of the neighborhood. I felt like I was the only person on the rooftop, watching the battle. The only one who could see the combatants. The only one who knew about this plan. We outnumbered the enemies, by a factor of two. I was glad. I’d told myself I’d be happy this was working out. Except it wasn’t. As the enemy combatants were killed or left to die, more came back. Enemies with high threat levels were eliminated while the ones with low threat levels were left to mop up. It was too slow. Our side was too spread out. I divided the swarm. Each unit contained in a cloud, like I had with Dragon’s spit, but with the added benefit that I could use the cloud to track the enemies. A few bugs, and I could sense what they were doing. They were checking the perimeter of the decoy swarm, ensuring it was intact. Enemies who were still standing were leaving rifts, and certain individuals were leaving the area between decoy and real enemy. If they sensed me approaching, if I was still on the roof, they were checking every rusted vehicle, every body they could see through the rain and the fog that had cleared around the damaged areas. I was getting too close. I had a bug pass over my shoulder, and I realized my hand was moving too slow to use my grappling-hook. I let my hand drop from the hook’s grip. I turned to face the enemy. They weren’t human. Human shaped. Their skins were bandages, sandbags stretched over bare skin, and the flesh was exposed where I couldn’t see it. Scales and bones marked out passages in the sand, where the damage had spread. A blow went over my head, and I realized I wasn’t wearing my costume. I had gotten my feet under me, my hair braided back behind my ears, but my helmet had slipped off while I’d been sliding, and I’d lacerated my forehead. The crest of a rock marked the spot where the back zipper had slipped down. There was only the decoy, the area where I couldn’t make out the enemy’s features as a whole. I swept the sand out from beneath the decoy and reached for one decoy that had escaped my attention so far. I moved the decoy, and the enemy turned just in time to avoid my hand. Sand billowed, and I slipped into the decoy’s field of view. No names. I could only guess at their features. Skitters, clones, some form of electrical charge, some heat, a large cloud of something black, and others I could make out as white-hot. The ones in the back had bodies sprouting from their back, as though they were standing upright. Some moved in one direction, catching hold of something, and others I couldn’t make out with my bugs. I couldn’t spare the bugs to track the enemy’s attacks as they came our way. I took the opportunity to send my swarm in the enemy’s general direction. The bug-borne bugs I had traveling with me were too few in number to make a real difference ======== SAMPLE 4 ======== his, I could see his eyes were wet. It didn’t suit him. I used my hands to clear the path, and I bent low. As I lowered myself, I murmured my thanks to him, and he reached out, bringing both hands up to cup my face. I felt his fingers brush against the edge of my mask. "Thank you," I told him. "You didn’t look like you were thanking anyone," he said, as he pulled away. "Someone else," I said. "We’re done. Here." He took the paper from me, "Read it. If there’s anything I may have misunderstood, please let me know. I look forward to hearing it." I turned around and began preparing a signature. "Is it important that the rest of you don’t sweat?" "No," I said. I glanced down at Tattletale. "Why would it be important?" "I don’t get it. You were talking about having a place to stay, and-" "We can discuss that," I said. "We have enough issues to deal with before we settle, with the rest of the Undersiders, and it doesn’t do the city any good if we wait until then." I stared at the ground. "You weren’t answering my question," Imp said. "We can discuss that," Tattletale said. "But I’m thinking-" "We won’t discuss your question," I said, interrupting. "No, we shouldn’t discuss any of our opponents’ questions. They’re unsavory, they inflict pain, and every time they’re raised, we’re less likely to find an answer." I could see Rachel’s confusion. "You’re not having a good conversation," Tattletale murmured. "Unsavory," Rachel said, in her characteristic voice, echoing my own. "Hm?" "His power makes someone more dangerous the second he has their attention," Tattletale said. "If Piggot is careful, the people who watch our group for anyone who might try to get in touch with us are placed a distance away, so they’re invisible to sight, radar and other tools that we might use to find them. They keep to the edges of the crowd, out of sight of either heroes or cops. It’s not perfect, obviously, but it works. They’ve handed civilians over to other groups, and that group has used it to track us down and take us down in turn. In every case, we’ve passed before." "So?" Tattletale glanced at Rachel, then back to me. "We did have a chance to get to safety, and we chose to pass. That’s no small thing." "You aren’t telling me," Grue said, "That there’s something bigger than that?" Tattletale shook her head. "I think there’s a good chance we’d run into those guys somewhere. Maybe we don’t know who they are, but we have an idea that some of us are wearing a chip on our shoulders. We’re not happy just being here, but we feel like we’ve lost much of what we had gained and it’s hard to get our minds around the idea that maybe we deserve to be rescued more than we deserve to be at the center of things." I looked at Regent, and I could see why he was unnerved. Was it the sheer possibility of us attacking this guy, risking getting shot even if we did nothing? "I’m not sure I see it," Rachel said. "It’s a risk, sure," Tattletale said. "But I’d rather face that than face no." "And when we’re done, when nobody’s shooting, nobody’s reported dead, nobody’s really upset," Rachel said, "We won’t be able to vent with everyone being hurt?" "We can manage," I said. I had the bugs flow out from my armor. "Let’s get back on topic. More losing than winning." "Makes sense," Tattletale said. I frowned. "The problem with this plan," I added, "Is that it puts too much power in the hands of the wrong people. The Manton effect is bad enough that Defiant and Dragon are going to have issues with it. They’ll have problems ======== SAMPLE 5 ======== his girl next door. But I was already leaving. It had to be done. The door closed, and I watched as the man exited the room, with his girl following. "I’m going to call my girlfriend," he mumbled the words, the mumble rising in volume as he stared unblinking at the laptop. "Can’t," I said. I could feel my pulse quicken. He was approaching. I saw a flicker of doubt, and then dawn. The woman who’d been leaning against the wall with her back to the wall, then raised herself to her full length, exposing all but one side of her body. Had she been pregnant? "Did you bring your shopping?" I asked. She shook her head. "My head’s throbbing. I can barely think, let alone move. It bugs me, and it worries me that it’s going to be so painful it’s almost painful, when I finally fix it. It’s like when my back started hurting, or when I tried to stand, and tried to move at all." "It’s not that bad," she said. "Just like that." I nodded numbly. My head was starting to pound with pain. "I’m going to have to talk to my family. They’d probably tell me it was better if I went, so I wouldn’t embarrass myself by admitting I wasn’t up to anything. But my friends would probably ask me to stand, and I’d probably do it, because it’s the most basic human right, and it’s the sort of question every parent asks at some point, I guess." The doctor left, and I stood, slowly. I was still struggling to breathe. I saw the woman’s face when I reached out and touched her forehead. I cupped her pale face, as if I could feel something between my fingertips. I could feel the swelling, painless area of her forehead, around the crease. She hadn’t suffered any immediate symptoms. No blood, no sign of blood loss. But she’d suffered enough. I looked up, and I could see a look of fatigue on her face, the edges of her mouth, her chin and chin only rose an inch or two above her husband’s head. It made me think of Lucy and Dad. "I… don’t know," I said. "I can’t make any promises, or let you know if there’ll be any changes." "You know I’ll leave it as is, or you’d still be in here, and I’m not up to anything before midnight, here." "I understand, ma’am." I waited. "I know some people are feeling anxious. A little bit of everything can give them a little something extra." "I… don’t feel anxious, ma’am." "You will, just a little," she said. She glanced around the room. "This isn’t a quiet room." "I didn’t say it was." She sighed, then turned to leave the room. I sat down on the couch and unbuckled my slippers. I picked up the box of powder. "This isn’t a magic bullet," she said. "It’s a mescaline. It’ll give you a nice, quick fix to whatever you’ve got bugging you." "Right," I said. I pushed past the last vestige of doubt. It would be best if I didn’t experience any psychosis- "Yes," she said. She pushed through the door. I could tell I was in for a big surprise when I got back. The powder was gone in an instant, dissolved in water. The schizophrenia was cured. "What did you do?" "Well," I said, suppressing a sigh, "I went to the vets. They said I have something called paranoid schizophrenia. They said it’s fairly common, and fairly treatable, if you go for it and live naturally. I’ve taken it." "You’re a member of the Nine?" "No. Just a kid from the south end, with powers. Someone tried to kill them when they were moving, but they caught on." "They’re not that bad." "They’re not that bad. I guess the question is, are you going to do anything about it?" " ======== SAMPLE 6 ======== his face. I felt a pit form deep in my stomach. I hadn’t hurt myself in twelve years of practice. But he had a grip on me, and that meant I was pretty much screwed if Bambina hit me. My armband was dead, and the armband didn’t work, which left only the possibility that I was trapped in a tank with the Endbringer. I shook my head, trying to think of something that might serve. "No. I’m not trapped in a tank with Endbringers. Got it?" "What do you mean?" It wasn’t the first time I’d ever seen him pause to let me draw up an answer for a question. It bothered me, in a way I couldn’t explain. I was still recovering from the vertigo I’d suffered at the fundraiser. I called my mother, and got an abrupt ‘hi’ from my dad. I knew he was busy with work, but I couldn’t be sure how that was going. I didn’t want to raise the subject with him, not without getting an immediate, unambiguous reply. "You’re really okay?" I asked. I wasn’t sure how he knew, but he did. "He has incurable brain damage," I told him, as much to annoy me as to burden the oncoming headache with more questions. I waited until Bambina reached her destination before opening my mouth again. Couldn’t say whether I should trust her ability to rescue me, or if I should trust that there was no point to pursuing this further. "I’ve been to the hospital, once," Bambina said, sounding a little disoriented. "I was with my dad. I was lying there, blind. You helped. And then the thing came back and…" She trailed off. I caught the remainder of her sentence. She’d been with Coil. "And I had my dad," the word was half-spoken, half-spoken. Bambina glanced up at me. Was she still a prisoner? "What?" She raised her voice to be heard over the crashing of the waves. "That I was with Coil. You know I’m not one to judge people." She looked down at where her ear was. There was no way I could follow her gaze. I looked away. "Oh. Um." The words hung in the air for a moment. "You know, being a hero," she said, "I almost forget, sometimes. I get really scared, sometimes, and I can only think of the villains that are after me. All of a sudden, I feel like I’m back in school, like I’m being persecuted or something. And you… they were all my friends, before I got powers. Before I got powers, they were just friends. The one that scared me the most, by far, was you." I swallowed past my tongue to keep from screaming, and I felt my blood run cold. Whatever bravado or jokes she had been planning, going off on such a tangent, it didn’t fit. "I could have done something about that," I said, "But I’m more upset that you’re alone than I am about what you did." "I know. It’s shitty, but I do remember that we were all together, talking. I think it’s more important that you get help, understanding what’s going on." I started to climb to my feet, but I had to catch my balance before I could turn away. "Don’t use your powers," my dad said. "I’ve tried," I told him. "It’s that or jail. But I’d rather not have my dad pestering me, knowing what I do about being your friend." "I know that." When I turned and let go of my dad, I didn’t hug my best friend. Instead, I called Lisa and told her, "I’m going to see Bambina." "I thought you were going to tell me you had something to tell me?" she was surprised. "I didn’t think it would be that big a deal." "She is," I told her. And she was still alive. She’d been conscious for five seconds at the most, and she’d been moving when I’d left the room. I felt a pang of guilt. It was hard to articulate. When I talked about people and monsters, I sometimes lumped ======== SAMPLE 7 ======== his head, a reminder of how he’d come to hate the blonde. As much as he could. So many months ago, he’d been the one who’d started it. He’d been the first to call her out on the lies. The villainess who had started it. He’d been the one to bring her to justice. He was, in a way, responsible for her quick death. He had to do something. The blonde had to be stopped. It was hard to find the words when he was speaking to her in the interrogation room. "I would like to point out that you are not a villain. You are not a monster. You have done nothing to deserve this treatment." "Didn’t do anything." "You preyed on children. We need to know that you were in contact with them." "The men were willing participants." "I was a man. I was not a sex trafficker. I did not prey on children." "I hear you. Come. I’ll give you my left foot." He hesitated. She seized his right. "Leister. My right." "Ah, that goes both ways." "You preyed on children. You were aware of that? That you preyed on children?" Leister only smiled. "There’s silence in the apartment. You can leave your hand on the table." "I would like to see what you’re cooking, and maybe come by the coffee machine sometime." Brian forced himself to stay still and stay seated. When he spoke, his voice was tight, firm, "There’s one other topic I have to cover before I can finish." "Alright," the girl in black said. "Not so big a deal." "It’s a topic I’d like to finish on my own," he added. "Oh, sure," she said, and her voice was a little too eager for her own safety. "Sure." Her eyes didn’t waver as she leaned back in her seat. Brian gave her a small nod as she made her way to the coffee machine. When she started up the coffee maker again, her tone was as if she were asking a question rather than a comment. "There’s other subjects we shouldn’t discuss while we wait for my sister. The subject of c–" "Stay focused," he said. "I will," she said. Alec groaned quietly, then turned to face his brother with the paper bag in hand. Brian and I exchanged a glance. It was all Alec could do to maintain his concentration. "There," Alec said, with a little sheepishness, "We’ve decided it. I’ll do it on my own." "That’s good," Bitch greeted him. Alec looked sheepish as well. He glanced between Bitch and Lisa, then looked away. Alec looked up and around the counter to place the order. His face already had that theatrical grin, but it was more grim. "My turn, punk." The other boys giggled. He took the paper bag from Bitch, handing her a portion bigger than a thick beef tenderloin. "I’ll do it," she said. "No," Brian spoke from the opposite end of the counter, "Sorry, Bitch." Bitch glared at him, but she reluctantly accepted the offer of a joint. The other boys from the group were moving around the counter, now. Bitch knew where they were, just by observing them. The bullies. Chances were good that Alec was here, too. Alec would be working to keep Bitch from talking to her, and speaking too soon the other boy would alert Bitch to his presence. Not an impossible thing to imagine. Lisa’s response to that was equally, if not more grim. "Hey, guys," Brian introduced himself, "Lisa, next." Kyle, Alec and Bitch joined him. It was then that Lisa really stepped up to the task. She took a few steps to the right, and then stepped right back to the counter to brief the employees. "So. Who do you think is the most likely to catch on and stop me?" "The most likely to catch on is Alec," Lisa answered, "He’s the most social and outgoing and the one with the best personality, I think. In the locker room and out, he’s the one everyone looks at. The one everyone looks up to." " ======== SAMPLE 8 ======== his words, "I had a conversation with her. How’s your sister? My sister is a little more familiar with what’s going on." "Tattletale was there last night. They were talking about what to do after Atlas left. I think my sister would be very interested, even fascinated." That drew a startled look from the Director. "What?" "What do you mean?" "She’s been going out to eat, talking to people. Some have hung around too, but not so many. It’s the kind of place where people want to be, not where we are." "I remember." "We’re here because Atlas isn’t here. I asked him to get away before the Endbringer attacked. I think I’m okay, after I had my breakout. I was alive when Leviathan came, but I went to a healer. My defenses weren’t up to par, he wasn’t destroying my flora and fauna. I went somewhere else." Krouse was still sorting out the papers inside the bag in his hands. "We were attacked by something like twelve Endbringers, right?" "Close enough." "What did you do?" "I told my sister to tell everyone I knew, and I sent people out to look for Scion. I went to the PRT building, they have a team of scientists and hunters there. I got hold of a PRT uniform, and we went looking. He said they couldn’t find anyone like it, that they couldn’t track it down." "That was a good bit of bad luck." "I’m glad it worked out." "And the rest of it?" he asked. "How did you get to be here?" "My sister asked me if I wanted to join. I was afraid to answer. I’m alive and well now, and she wanted a way to thank me, or maybe it was out of gratitude for having me alive in the first place." "Is she?" Krouse nodded. "She’s okay. She was fine when I called, but she said she would be fine the next time we spoke. I understand if she is bummed, but I wasn’t expecting it." "What would you have done differently?" "I-I would have called her." "Okay. And this isn’t the kind of place you’d call for help. You’d be putting yourself at risk by going for the easy road, but the PRT put in a lot of effort to try and catch people like you before you could make it clear that you weren’t interested. It seemed like they were having second thoughts after the fiasco with the Simurgh. I felt bad about abandoning you, and it was leaving me more vulnerable if I didn’t do it again." "Um. Yeah. I guess I was using her for the right reasons, I might have called and asked her to do something else." "Not asking you to do anything more. I see. So if I could’ve taken more steps to minimize the damage, I could have done something to minimize the damage." "With my luck, it would have backfired so badly that I got called in as an ally." "It might have. You’re very experienced. Very tactical. I just felt it was important to call you because you were so willing to go the extra mile, to go the extra mile in getting help. And you were willing to do this without any promises of protection or help in return." Krouse nodded, swallowed the lump in his throat, and looked at the bag where he was keeping the phone. "I’d go crazy if I got a phone call from you." "Why?" "Because you helped. That’s all I ask. I know it’s not your fault, and I know that it might not have been possible without your efforts, but I would have fucked up, and you’d be the ones left worse off if I call you and there’s no response." Krouse looked down at the floor. He touched his lower stomach, where he kept his costume pinned in place. The zipper of his costume was halfway down his stomach. "You okay?" "I-I guess so. I was thinking I owed you one." "You’re good?" "I suppose so. I’m not good when it comes to hiding or manipulating people, and I know I won’t do much worse than push you away or get in your way if you want to visit my territory ======== SAMPLE 9 ======== his daughter, she was like a fish out of water, so to speak. I sensed the darkness flow over my legs once more, dislodging the bits that were mottled with blood. "She’s okay," I gasped the words. "Skin’s off. But the injuries are there." "My spider senses her," Bonesaw’s voice sounded through the armbands, "Sensory input has her very nearly losing her grip on me, her balance. This is a big one." I was already stumbling forward, to minimize the darkening of the surroundings. "A concussion," I heard Bonesaw. She was moving down the length of the hallway, now, out of my range. I caught up with her in a moment. We were halfway to the staircase. "Don’t-" she began. But the door was half-turned, the door frame blocking her from entering. I used my spider sense to kick it away, then used my bugs to start fending her off. "What happened?" I asked. "Revel entered my range and began inflicting wounds. I retaliated by striking her and sending my bugs out to attack others. She latched onto me, and I began fighting her." I could see her approaching the threshold. She moved slower than my bugs could, moving at a superhuman speed, almost unbeatable in a fight. "You’re just outside my range." "Yes. I’m collecting all the collectibles everyone left behind. Your collection will be damaged if you don’t enter my range," she said. "She was injured." "I don’t understand. I thought I told you all that stuff would happen." I was getting a sense of her, realizing how well informed I was. How much she’d heard, and yet she didn’t care? She’d been hit by Leviathan’s wave, by Leviathan attacking the Docks. When Dinah left, I told Parian, Tattletale and Rachel, and I had a sense of where Leviathan was. I’d seen him. I could see him. By the time I’d arrived, he’d changed. Worn down his throat with claw marks in the midst of his molars, thick and white, like teeth toots, but he hadn’t lost any of his teeth. His jaw was ajar, hooked over one side, a bulge at the base of the roof of his mouth, thick and rows and rows of teeth extending between and over his tongue. He flexed it as if he were chewing, which he was, but there were no such gaps or gaps in his jaw. Now he stood, and his face was twisted backwards, as if he were a swan, broad and unwavering. Like a true swan, he didn’t move. "Do you know how to fight?" I asked. "Not really," she said. "But I can guess." I thought of the heroes and villains we’d saved. Dinah, that girl from the church. I remembered how Vex had tried to kill him. "I won’t give you my autograph, there’s nobody I can give it to." She laughed, and it was a grotesque, grotesque sound. The girl in the church had her throat slashed open from the outside, the sounds muffled. Her voice was a croak, slightly accented. "You are so funny," Bonesaw said. Tattletale and Rachel had backed away, too shocked to look anymore. No. I’d had it out of my own end of the room. They were as safe as they could be, but they still had a measure of leverage. She walked past me, and her foot bounced on the doorframe. I backed away a step, but she kept standing. "What are you doing?" Rachel asked. "Making a scene," she said. She tapped her leg, then bent down, touching the door. Her hand was outstretched. I felt out with my bugs. "Trouble!" a voice said. Rachel bent down and picked up the phone. "The White Fang call came through. Do your best not to reply." "I’m injured," she said. "Do your best," the voice said. Then it came through, "We’ll try to help you." I could feel the bugs moving through the empty hallways. "I want to go home," Rachel said. The door opened, and the girl ======== SAMPLE 10 ======== his head by her hand. It did not go well. "It’s okay," I whispered. "She’s right. It’s okay." She looked confused. "It’s just taking some time," I said. "I’ll go help that girl." Imp nudged me. "No!" I felt her tugging on my arm. I resisted the urge to pull her away. I’d been led to believe that our time together had been limited to a few dozen banal introductions. How many decades did it really cost? I’d have to compromise, fall in line. "I’ll come with you," I said. I knew I didn’t have the support of everyone in the group. "If you want me to go, you can’t make me. You can give me some encouragement, but I won’t get stronger if you keep doing that." There were nods all around. She climbed on top of me. She wasn’t holding my hand. But she held my hand as we ascended the rope, and she returned my hand to its holder as we headed to the next set of doors. She returned my grip to the rope. A small part of me felt like I should have thanked her for being helpful, but I couldn’t, couldn’t show gratitude. "Cherish said to wait until we come across a human, but we probably won’t," Imp said, as we reached the next set of doors. "You two stopped," I said. "You want anything? I can patch you up if you need it. You know Tattletale can figure it out." "If there’s anything we can spare," Imp said, "I can hook you up with some painkillers for your legs, a shower. If we wind down for the night, you can shower and sleep in the barn, you know Grue can check in on you tomorrow." "Okay," I said. "No rush." "Weaver?" I spoke up, "Weaver is a while out of the barn. I’ll see if I can arrange anything. My legs are a little sore from the ride, and it feels like I’ve almost hurt them. I won’t feel out of my depth, but I can deal." "Then the next wagon will bring us to your destination. My people’s gathering. I’ll ask them to gather at the barn where the hay bales were earlier. When they’re done, they’ll take turns to sleep." I nodded. "Good. We’ll need more than that," Cherish said. I looked at the others. They were working to hash out the remaining barriers. Some were combing through the gaps, others were working with tinker tools to try to fill the voids. "I’ll see what I can do," Imp said. "You train me?" "Of course," Imp said. She glanced over her shoulder at Cherish. "Where’s your aunt? Her parents haven’t returned to their village, and the dog is cranky about the lack of food." Cherish turned toward the barn. "Ours?" Imp asked. "Back when we were going out in the barn to start our fight with the Slaughterhouse Nine, back then. When we were preparing to go on the offensive." Cherish nodded. "I think I’ll trust you on that one. That aunt thing… I thought you’d get along with her. You know, they’re in the same town as us, and she’s a pretty amazing person." "I know," Imp said. Cherish smiled wide. "We should go. We have a long way to go before we can say we’ve attacked the Nine. If you’re looking for me to take as your leader, I’ll make a point of thanking you. Maybe we go on a patrol together, sometime we head out to find some food that maybe my power can’t give me. After we control all of the food sources, maybe we have a few days where I let the dogs grow to their full size. Then we head out to attack the Nine." "The Nine?" I asked. "The Merchants." I nodded. "Good to know. And can you call off the dogs?" She shook her head, then used the clairvoyant to see the others ahead. "Me?" "Sorry. That was the ======== SAMPLE 11 ======== his right hand, leaving it open to be used as a grappling hook. I used the grappling hook to try to catch Grue up, and he was flung skyward. He landed in the shallow water, quickly got airborne, and ripped off straight lines of speed as he made a beeline for me. My bugs did a pretty good job of concealing themselves. Three at the longest point, and they swept over Grue, depositing them on the pavement in broad daylight. "No, no-" I started to speak, to speak more clearly. But the bugs disappeared into the darkness, and I was left only with the sensation of hot air on my skin, of a strong wind blowing against my face. I didn’t give him a chance to breathe. The thick tendril of the gauntlet closed around his hand and feet, and he plummeted. I was thrown against the sidewalk and landed with my feet under me. I managed to free myself just in time to see Rachel gingerly making her way down the length of the alley, one hand outstretched in an arc, toward me. She stopped just short of me, one knee pressed to my ear. "She’s not coming," Tattletale said. "You heard," Imp said, "She’s got no allies." "I heard," Tattletale said, sounding disappointed. "How?" "So. You understand, right? Don’t be embarrassed, tell me she’s probably going to try something." "Should have known," I said. I was glad that I wasn’t facing the full fury of the bugs, glad that Rachel wasn’t having to face something as fatal as a sting. I was glad too that I didn’t see Grue or any of the Wards turning to attack her. I could only hope that they weren’t so worried they would needlessly kill me. No allies, it meant my dad was safe, and he probably wasn’t coming to visit me. Still, I knew he was out there. I could hope that Rachel had given my dad some sort of reminder. "Right," I said. "Let me apologize in advance." I turned to Tattletale, and she bowed my way as we reached the base of the stairs. "We’d hoped to talk to him, earlier, but he’s occupied himself with some other stuff, and we missed him." "Not a big surprise," I added. "We knew he wasn’t around." "Not a big surprise," Tattletale agreed. "But it’s good to see him alive and well." "And?" I asked, reaching up to touch the side of the stairwell. "Can you pet him?" "He’s not good to touch," Tattletale said. "Not with the complications of a mental illness." I shook my head. "Not a lot of options. We have to find him, get him back, get medical care for him. If we don’t get those things done, it’s going to hurt him. Then we’re left with unanswered questions, we could wind up in court if he doesn’t wake up." "Court would be more fun," Grue said. He climbed the stairs. "So sad," Imp said, as we reached the top. "Ever hear of kidnapping?" "I don’t know if I have," I said. "But I’ve seen what it’s done. So I’ll ask again, pet?" Tattletale smiled. She offered me a little salute, and I nodded. We descended the stairs, and Tattletale led the way to the beds. She stopped at the end, so we faced the end of the hallway. "So, Grue and I met last night. It was our second night out together. I’ve been wanting to go out for a while." "That doesn’t really sound like it happened," I said. "It kind of happened," she said. She was looking at the wall clock that marked the end of her shift, rather than the end of our conversation. She had a kind of intensity to her expression that made it feel like she was saying something real, even if it was just to herself. "I know I don’t have much to talk about with you," I said. It would be hypocritical, as a cape, to not have powers and talk about her, but it would also be idiotic, as a real person, not pretending to be like her. "I’m just… if I get powers, they are going ======== SAMPLE 12 ======== his face. "It’s really simple," I told him, "I’m a shitty person who wants to be useful. You’d better believe me if I said I was helping you, or someone else would come after you, and they’d probably do it in a way that’s totally not my fault." He rolled his eyes. "Okay, okay. Okay. You’re going to have to forgive me, but I’ve got one condition. You have to call me Taylor, unless you’re talking to the cops or someone in PRT uniform. Okay?" I didn’t need another convincing, and I was pretty sure he wouldn’t be the first one to use my code without my permission. "I’ll be blunt, then," I said, "You can call me whatever name we want. It doesn’t matter." "Alright." "We don’t know who or where she is. Either she’s lying, pretends, or there’s something about the money. When the cops and everyone else are gone, I come back." He shut off the phone, then got out a piece of paper. It was a ten by himself, stamped with the same image twice. I stared at it for a long moment, then glanced at my cell phone. It was a few minutes before the voice picked up. "The guy at the phone says… Krouse, get out of the house. Be ready to deploy at a moment’s notice. We’re in an area with heavy metal doors, so be ready to use your power if you see someone. We’re at the top of the walls, near the elevators." "Okay," I replied. I had to grit my teeth to keep from biting my tongue or looking like I was in a rush. "We’re only a block down the hall, if you want to walk faster. You don’t have to run, unless you want to. Just don’t get too close to anyone or anything that looks dangerous." "Okay," I agreed. "I’ve got a few other things I need to call you about, but I’m going to be thorough. You can call in sick if you have any major problems, but you can’t have anyone from work or school coming into your room to check on you, you’d be in more trouble than you are, and that’d be bad for your mood. Also, no swearing." I nodded. It made sense, if I remembered correctly. My dad had once taunted me for cursing around the kids. "I see, and my sister’s been up since as long as I can remember, and she has been since the surgery. I didn’t know if it was your sister or not. But she’s been giving me some serious crick since the surgery. I was hoping to get her to a doctor to have her dick examined, or pay her to, um, not have it done, but she’s been refusing to come to the place I wanted her, and I was hoping that maybe she’s on the down-low, and I didn’t want to go there." "She’s never had a boyfriend?" "No," I answered, shrugging. "If I remember right, before the operation, she went to my grandparents, her family doctor was a Jew?" He had flushed red, and a pile of dirty diapers stood beside each leg. "She’s not the type to show any interest in you or anything. I mean, really, she was having none of it, I thought, and that’s why she was making it a big deal. It didn’t sit right. I don’t like her, or even know her, but she was a loser of a person. So I’m just going to leave her be." "That’s not good enough," he said. "I was going to do you a favor." "It’s not a favor," I told him, "But I don’t know what you mean. What I meant was that she’s not the type to date." "I don’t want to talk about that," he said, abruptly. I hadn’t seen the anger in his eyes, the anger of someone who had just been cheated on. "Are you being a twit?" "I was. I’m not twit now, are you?" "You can’t really tell if people are, ======== SAMPLE 13 ======== his hair to tie it back. "Well, that’s not so bad," Tattletale gave him a light pat on the back, "So. You knew it would be bad for your reputation, that you wouldn’t be able to relax or stop by yourself." "It’s fine," Krouse brushed his hair to get it in order, "We’ve got room for all of you." "Of course," Luke said, "The building our guys are in isn’t bad. We were staying at least an hour’s walk away from the main area." "We’ll need a hotel for the three of us," Luke said, "After a night like tonight, we’re itching to get going and tackle the next block of patrols." "You guys can do it," Luke assured them, "The only ones who visit this place are the cops, usually. Or the reporters and editors. They visit a lot of other places in the Docks, and we’re pretty sure the police only stay a night. So we’d be bringing in more money than we’d lose in the first place." "Pretty safe money," Luke said. "Pretty safe money," Tattletale agreed, "And you guys know that the PRT isn’t stupid, not exactly. They’re aware that the reputation of the local team isn’t exactly built on good deeds and good humor, so they’re paying a pretty penny for the privilege. There’s a reason the PRT pays more." Krouse and Marissa were the first and second group of people to arrive. They made their way into the restaurant. "I’m surprised you came," Krouse said. "I had an idea," Tattletale said, "But I thought you should know." "What is it?" "The first real demonstration of my power. The cops thought it was a good way to shut down a guy with the power to screw on shoes, and it didn’t turn out so well. They thought I’d impersonate a cop, but I’m more of a rogue agent. I’ve been dropping hints for a while now, and now I’m getting the short shrift. I thought you’d be interested." "I don’t know enough about the power to do what you’re doing," he said. "But the point is that I think everyone would be more interested in how you got away. A way to break out if you did get caught. A way to recoup lost time. An excuse to go on all of the adventures we’ve accumulated in the meantime." "Sounds good," Krouse said. Tattletale shrugged, "I can only do a limited amount of damage, with my bugs, so long as I’m putting them on people’s skin. You’d be doing a lot more damage if you went to the Birdcage." "You’d be making me a cop," Krouse said. "No, you wouldn’t," Tattletale replied. "So long as I’m on your skin, it’s quiet and you can leave the group with minimal effort." "What about the cops and undercover operatives?" Marissa asked. "Nothing. These guys work for the good guys, they don’t have a lot of free time to devote to doing it, so they’re catching every opportunity they can. They catch you looking, they bait you into a trap and then they have you do something they want you to do." "Which you’ve done a lot," Luke said, "Saying the least." "Every opportunity, yes," Tattletale said. She made a mental note. "Have to be careful, though. Being a part of a team means there’s usually a good reason to go after someone, and that usually means they’re a crook. It’s more likely they’ll take out a rival team, but every so often, you run into someone who’s not undercover, and every single one of them is more dangerous than the other two." Krouse leaned forward, gripping the railing. "Anyways," Luke said, eyeing the scene, "You say that as a thief, you think that the team is a trap." "To some people. Probably to some people. Some people who want to see their city destroyed. Or maybe to get revenge for the people who died when the Simurgh attacked." "How do you break into that?" Luke asked. " ======== SAMPLE 14 ======== his father. The kid had the biggest heart, and he had taken care of me. That was the kind of support I’d needed to get this far. Had it not been for the bullying? Maybe it had been wrong, maybe he’d been afraid to see me that way. Maybe, in the grand scheme of things, it had been about controlling the attention of the group around me, keeping them on their toes. It had worked. I’d managed to avoid getting labeled as someone who was depressed, anxious, or even lonely, to the point that I felt like I was front page news. I hadn’t been arrested, I hadn’t been sent to the hospital, and I hadn’t gone to prison, all in all. I was, briefly, Laurel and Hardy. And, with luck, my powers would make it through this. I could only hope I wasn’t the exception that proved the rule. Speck 30.2 The phone rang. "Yes?" "Carol," the person on the other end said, sounding tired. She was older, in a way I wasn’t used to seeing, and her blond hair was longer. She had a more mature bearing than the teenaged girl beside her. "Where is she?" "In the shower," Carol said. She looked frustrated. "Thank you," I said. "I don’t normally get a call, but I didn’t know you were busy." "Sometimes," she said. "Last year I was going to California with my parents, and I got a call from Armsmaster. He wanted me to come with him to his hideout, so I headed over. I wasn’t staying at the Loft, but that’s changed. I’m used to not being able to see them or hearing about them, so I didn’t know if there’d be an issue or not. This year, I’ve kind of adjusted to that. You know how it is, with powers? It’s all normal. Everything’s cool. We talk, we laugh, we get freaked out by some pretty wild shit. But we go back to our normal routine, night after night, after the other kid starts having a good night. We go to bed, we fall asleep, and then we wake up the next morning, only it’s different, we get freaked out by the cops, or some other shit. Only thing that freaked me out in particular this year was the guy that one of my teams with last year had been messing with. Shaping people like you guys, mixing powers and doing stuff with them. I kicked his ass. I’m not good at this, I don’t know enough about it, but I kicked his ass last year." "Who is she?" "Jessica Valenti, Assistant to the Director." "Fuck!" "What the hell are you doing here?" "This is my apartment, my space. I’m here if you need me, if you need some professional advice, or if you need to go somewhere, I’m cool." "She’s not the kind of person who gets advice from superheroes," I said. "Oh hell no." "And you have a reason for not coming," Carol said. "I was rambling, my head’s throbbing, things are a mess, and I can’t think straight." I swallowed, then took my cue from her. Not the brightest person, I admitted, but she didn’t look like she was in too much pain. "You don’t seem to be fazed at all by this. I think that heart monitor would probably be going off by the time we got back, but you don’t look in a good light, and it’s not like the damage is permanent." "I’ve been here before, boss," she says. "Nothing’s gonna happen this time. But I’d really like to talk business." There was a long pause. I glanced out the window to see the front door of the Loft open. Is this hallway being used as a command and control channel for some submachine gun? "Carol. If you’d be so good as to step inside…" She glances back at me, and there isn’t a trace of the fake smile or the fake bow on her face. "I’m going to be right back," I say. I stood as I made my way back to my room. I took a second to stand before bolting ======== SAMPLE 15 ======== his hands. He took in the information I was able to glean from those I could trust, and tried to make sense of it. Was it true? Maybe. But wasn’t it a little cynical, that kind of reasoning? He’d had a dream, had been gripped by it, and was convinced it was the truth. Couldn’t trust his ability to tell the difference between a liar and an imbecile, when the two were so close? The next piece of information was on the wall. "Desk," I said, reaching over, and she hit me with enough force that I dropped the phone. It wasn’t the kind of desk you found in an elementary school. It wasn’t even functional. It was crude, a rudimentary keyboard with a number pad. I had to remind her that I was trying to trick her. I did it in one long motion, instead. She toppled, and I caught her balance on the desk. One hand gripping the desk, I drove her face down. She didn’t give me a chance to finish. I let go of the leg, and I pulled her arms behind my back, just as I had her hold the phone. I pressed the ‘up’ key, and I sent my bugs into her open mouth. I did two takes, one of each type of bug, and then I let go. Her screams reached a crescendo, and I knew then that she was screeching. Her screams came in more grating, thick, distorted sounds, coming from multiple mouths. I moved the bugs from her mouth, and I could feel something form at the tip of my finger, taking hold of one swarm. The bugs were moving in a vague breeze, and they migrated my way, gathering in clusters large and small, in my favor. I could feel that breeze from where I’d been in the field, from where my bugs had settled. I used my bugs to taste blood. Carnal. Sting 26.1 "I’m sorry," the woman said. I felt a kind of anxiety creeping up on me, as I waited for her to apologize, some kind of trigger event that would put an end to this madness. No such luck. It seemed she’d picked up on my double standard, or something. "I think you’d be surprised how much I care," I said, the words tentative. "Don’t say that," she said, and the hesitation was all the more jarring because it came from her mouth than it did because it came from me. "I care about your well-being." Fuck you, Emma. "I- I guess I’m wondering why you wanted me to do this, knowing how self-centered you’re being?" "Because I cared about the same things you cared about, winning, being the underdog, escaping my dad’s shadow. Being forgotten, being a loser." Fuck you, Emma. I swallowed. I wasn’t in the mood for further argument. "I- If you haven’t figured it out already, that’s the antithesis of what I was saying before. The people I’m talking about care about those things. They care about you, they care about the city, in particular. They feel like you’re in the right hands, because you took charge, you changed things. It’s been a downhill trend for far too long, and it’s largely to your own fault." She shook her head a little. "And you’re about to get a major part of the wheel out of that unfortunate little spin that is your brain, and I can’t help but wonder if you’ve gone the way you’ve been looking for. If you’re self conscious, if anyone else is making you feel guilty, I’m pretty sure you can look at this and you can’t help but feel guilty, and if you think about it, you might even be putting yourself in a weaker position. Can you imagine being in a better position? Being a teenager? Being a member of this team? You’ll be walking down a crowded street hand in hand with anyone the fuck willing to put their lives on the line, and maybe on a team like the Protectorate, you’ll even have the resources you need to get the job done. A team like ours, we’ve racked up a shitload of experience, and if this doesn’t work out-" Emma stared at me. I could see her eyes narrow, almost wincing, " ======== SAMPLE 16 ======== his hard metal arm, with the hole in it giving him more handholds than was generally available. He reached down briefly to grab something, then stopped. When he stood, he looked up to see the man who was now holding his severed arm, dangling it with his good hand, the other end in his other hand, the metal of the arm held askew by Grue’s power. He was blind, deaf, and the man could crush the limb with enough force that chairs and filing cabinets would be crushed. "What the hell are you?" the man asked. "Don’t fucking give me an answer," Tattletale called out. The man’s expression changed. He looked momentarily confused, then growled, "What I thought you were saying." "I don’t know what the fuck you think I’m saying." "I’m saying you can’t trust me." "No," the man groaned. He reached behind his back and retrieved a kitchen knife from the kitchen counter. He handed the blade to Tattletale. Tattletale took it, then handed the knife to the man’s left. The man pointed the knife at Grue. "You’re going to get in trouble, if you do that." Grue glanced at Tattletale. "I’ll have to remind you that you aren’t in a position to judge me. I’ve been through what you are. I don’t have superpowers. I’ve got less power than most people have when they get their powers, and I had zero training or experience as a martial artist before I came to this city. I don’t have any of that." "No?" "Nothing that would make me special. What you’re talking about is semantics. I did what I did because I was a hero. Because the Endbringers were bad. Or because other groups were bad and I was special. Whatever the reason might be. You don’t have the benefit of any of that. You’re heroes, and that’s all I have. Except maybe the power to change things, to do better things, but that’s pretty much it." "And you can’t?" the man in gray looked at me. I looked at him and nodded. "I’m not sure I understand. Can you give us a general idea of where your teammates are?" I looked at the man, who gestured to the kitchen where Regent and Imp were. "Then we’ll get started." "Righty-o." We all nodded. The man got down from the table, slicing his hand across my shoulder. I turned to Tattletale. "Where’s Grue?" "In a panic," she murmured, extending one hand to Regent, shaking it. "It’s my turn now. Where’s he?" "Inconvenient," Tattletale said. "He’s not with us, and he wasn’t planning on leaving." "He’ll be soon," I responded. We had an ugly hour-long wait before the Endbringer returned. The other Endbringers were at various points around the city, while we waited for the one we were waiting to arrive in Brockton Bay. "They’re all gathered," Grue announced. "Me?" Tattletale sounded a touch incredulous. "You think they’ll gather here? Here in the restaurants and bars?" "You’re wrong," I said. Of course they won’t gather here. This place is isolated. "Um," Tattletale said. "Um. I guess it just points to one thing." "Something?" "The Travelers are waiting for a transport," Tattletale said, "A little behind schedule. They’ll all be waiting for a chance to arrive. I think they’ll be settling down for the night." "Which is exactly why I’m trying to get everyone set up. We’re all fugly enough we should run into each other, and our individual strengths will be revealed in their individual moments." "But…" "But it’s not an excuse to avoid planning, I see," Tattletale went on. I nodded assent to that. Grue came to stand beside me. He gave me a once-over, and I noticed Tattletale was standing a little behind me, behind me. I knew from the Enforcer incident that Tattletale really shouldn’t ======== SAMPLE 17 ======== his, and I could almost see the stitches come undone, the blood running from his nose, down his chin and the sides of his mouth. The man drew a gun away as the stitches pulled. "No," Bonesaw said, and the stitches disappeared, but his grip relaxed further, the gun relinquished. He looked almost startled at that. "I’m not… sure," I said. "No," Bonesaw said. "I don’t know. But I’d like to think that whatever happened to her, some unknown factor shaped her." "And Mannequin?" I asked. "You’d want to put the pieces together, if you had all the facts, to see what happened to her," she said. There was a long pause. "But we’re not that close to knowing." I could see a glimmer of surprise on the faces of the men. I coughed slightly, then looked to my teammates. "We have a plan, and we need to find a way to execute it. How are we going to do that?" "We have a plan," Grue said. "But something tells me there’s something more to it." I couldn’t see his expression, but I saw his shoulders change. It wasn’t just the general lack of concern. There was a weight to him that suggested he wasn’t going to like it. "It’s not a good plan," I said. "Not like this. It’s going to backfire." "We’d better implement it," Clockblocker said. "But-" "But," Clockblocker said, taking a step forward as he advanced from his shadow state, "No use letting it be known, especially not here. Let’s not debate strategy, especially not here, when we can run and gun down bugs like we were able in New Delhi." Be safe, everyone. We retreated from the scene, and Grue used his power to help cast a spell with distracting bugs. Tattletale spoke for the first time, "Bonesaw is here." "Where?" She turned her head to look at us. "…The roof." We watched as the others joined us. Rachel was using her power to hide, me to keep an eye out for potential ambush and to help block off routes of retreat. Grue and Clockblocker went on foot, with Regent moving behind them. "They’re coming," a voice emanated from our group. Bastard was withdrawing from the darkness and entering our vicinity under cover of darkness. Grue reached out with his power. I didn’t see it, but he did feel the presence of a being that was pulling him to his feet. The darkness dissipated. I could see him with my own eyes. He was in a heightened state of awareness. Had to be Night. She looked as sharp as ever, her hair and makeup even more so. Except that she had clear, distinct lines in her bleached blond hair. She’d change. She’d look like a teenage girl in a black suit, if someone looked at her and said something like, ‘Oh noes. Are you in trouble?’. Night wouldn’t be able to hide behind words, but a quick glance… there were lines drawn in the darkness around her eyes. Regent looked as well, but he had a different effect. His power was a blur to follow, but he evened out the light and the shadows. It looked as though he’d been pressed into a corner with no room to maneuver. His power never left his grasp, but the effects were the same. Night was alive, as though she’d never stopped. "What do we do?" Grue asked. "Night, look," Tattletale said. And I did. Night was on the rooftop, just a short distance from Scion. The cape with the cry had stopped at one edge of the roof, still reeling from the assault. It hadn’t been Scion, but some precog from the alley. The boy had had two attacks with no apparent end. The Endbringers would be dead. "Why-" I started to ask. We were cut off as Bakuda raised her weapon, raised her armband. "Reporting. Status update from my end. The Endbringers fell between two of the Simurgh’s strikes. The cape on the rooftop was hit by both, and just barely managed to dodge out of the way. One of the Endbringers was able to touch him, and ======== SAMPLE 18 ======== his man could see the blood flowing from the wound. "I know it hurts," he spoke, hesitantly. "How much? When?" "Years ago, before I knew what was happening," he said. "I know, Brian. But it’s so long ago you didn’t know. This is so painful you’re scared you’ll lose your mind." "Pain works," he said. "It does what it’s supposed to. It’s just… what’s this? It’s the worst pain I’ve had in years. It’s worse than being deaf and blind, or being in the shower alone at night. It’s like my brain is a washing machine and there’s something we don’t want it to be. That’s really not fair to me. So I guess, just here, in this moment, I’ve never felt so embarrassed, so ashamed, so alone in my entire life." His eyes fell on Brian. "Weaver?" he asked. "My dad. He told me to keep quiet about that, but it’s too late now. I know you know about me and this. It’s too fucked up and things are fucked up for the sake of being fucked up. So I’m going to ask you to stop being my friend." He let go of my hand, staring down at his torn, stained hands. "It’s not your fault. It’s only like, hindsight, it’s the closest thing we have to a family, right?" I nodded. "Right." Our hosts had been so nice, so welcoming. A few months back, I’d had a hard time fitting in, had made friends only after I’d been here a short while, and had even then been nervous. I had skipped town, not sure how else to get back in contact with my dad and get him to talk to me. I’d talked to my best friend there, the girl who had given me my nickname, most of the time, while she was looking after the kids, helping to keep the door open for the unwed and those who weren’t doing as good of a job as they could. Those were my memories and the memories Brian was forgetting; I hadn’t really had a close, personal conversation with my dad. I couldn’t exactly remember what I said or did that led to the conversation taking a decidedly more hostile turn, but I had taken some goodwill away from my dad and his ‘friend’. Especially when it came to talking about dark stuff and bad things, he’d backed me up. I was angry at myself, a little upset at the memory, and I felt more than a little ashamed that I hadn’t just closed the door and locked it, like I’d done with my passenger. The graceless apology that followed only his empty gut was telling. A part of me, that part of me that was larger than Lisa and Brian, knew I shouldn’t have said what I did. That, to return to the apology, what I was actually apologizing for, might have sounded hollow. I didn’t plan on getting off of my ass to apologize for whatever it was I was really sorry for, in the here and now. I watched Brian and Lisa walk by me, and I caught Lisa’s eyebrow. "You said you were going to take the bus back to the Docks?" "I’d take the ferry," Lisa answered, "They’d have rooms at the Trainyard, and I’d like to get some sleep before I head to my rendezvous point, so I can prepare in case Bitch is absent or injured." "The bus back to the Docks is a train from Portland to Boston, and the ferry to Victoria is a little more scenic than the other two." Lisa shrugged. "Oh?" Brian turned to me. "Have you changed your mind?" "Yeah," I said. "The idea of going downtown with some of your favorite people and seeing what the city is like on a day-to-day basis, getting acclimated and spending time with them? Yeah, that sounds like a bad idea." "Does it?" I shrugged, "Yeah." "I guess the other obvious route would be to go downtown?" "Yeah," I said. "But that doesn’t sound good either." "I know it isn’t your style to be all dramatic when talking about stuff," he clarified. "Yeah. You ======== SAMPLE 19 ======== his eyes from my mask. He did, to one degree or another, before I figured him out. Not that I liked it. Tattletale, Rachel, Panacea and Parian were out. It was one-upped by the Endbringer, who hadn’t been expecting Tattletale’s group to show. It seemed he was anticipating the counterattack from Behemoth, given how he changed locations to go after the unsuspecting heroes. The Endbringer was stationary, not moving. He kept his distance from us, turning only to pounce on the airborne heroes. Rachel dropped off her wheelchair as the figure in question landed in close proximity to her. I could see her bend her arms to catch the man who’d landed next to her, almost certainly intending to throw him over the edge. Parian’s water powered flight carried her above the scene, away from Behemoth. She stopped a short distance from the Endbringer, but didn’t turn away or do anything. Not that it mattered. He was moving too fast to dodge. I felt a pang of horror, a sudden, sharp urge to run, to find warmth, to find a means of getting away. I shook my head. We turned to run, and it was darkness. None of the heroes were moving. I didn’t want to run, to help Rachel, but I saw an opening. I drew words in the air with the bugs I’d kept in reserve. I could have stayed. Helpless, useless. It didn’t matter. Whoever the subject was, they were dropping like flies. The ground sucked up moisture and moisture transformed into darkness. The darkness shrank until the brick of the road was nearly empty. I wasn’t running. I could fly, but I had another weapon on hand. An Arc Lightning. With the speed I’d turned around, I realized I could move. I kicked one leg out from under the young woman’s arch. She fell a little to the left, tumbling. I don’t know what I expected, but I had turned towards the road, toward Grue, Tattletale, Rachel and the fallen heroes. I expected her. I just didn’t know what she was. The lightning had been brief. I’d barely registered it as it came, and I had no idea how to use it. I could have used it to turn it off. To carry out a movement like the one I’d made on my earthquake run. I didn’t have time. The armband flashed for me. I zipped up my jacket and raised a hand to my ear. It was an armband, not a distress call, though the wording suggested otherwise. I heard the word armband twice in quick succession. Accord. I began to climb to my feet. I couldn’t quite tell him to climb up, with the way the lightning was periodically interrupting me. I saw him extend one hand, and he reached out, almost a pitcher raising his hand to his mouth, giving the words for an order. I was pretty sure I could have hung there for a minute, waiting for the signal to pass, if there was only the opportunity. But I didn’t have any more time, and I didn’t have my costume. I climbed up to the edge of the rooftop, then dropped down, my feet skidding on the quiet water. The faint roar of the water drifted through the air, as if it were breathable. I was upside down, almost horizontal, and the water didn’t touch me. I tried to move my right arm, found only tension. Where had it gone? I couldn’t bring myself to move it. It was a severing injury, one that would surely end my existence if I didn’t attempt to find a way out. I found the spider silk and draped it around my midsection, as if I were stalling for time. A movement caught my attention. I jerked, and I didn’t move my head or legs. The noise stopped. A gunshot? A question? No. I felt something impact me. My midsection throbbed, and that was followed by bouts of weakness, cramping, painful stiffness, and finally complete and total inability to move my arms. I felt numb. Trap. I reached up, as if I could somehow clutch the gun. I was too weak, weak despite the silk I’d woven. I couldn’t bring myself to move, shooting ======== SAMPLE 20 ======== his head as he ran forward, I thought of the feeling of my phone vibrating, the realization that I probably wouldn’t be able to stop him until he made it through that. My bugs carried a nest of bugs inside the building, at the end of the street, where debris had fallen in an ugly fashion. It wasn’t the most ideal location, and I wondered if they had done something to set it off. "I just want to go home," I said. The woman shook her head. Her voice was a little higher pitched than usual. "I know this sounds desperate, but do you really want to come out of this okay? You might hurt your girlfriend, you might lose your job, but I doubt you’d live." "Okay," the woman said. Her voice was a little harder. "Mm." "Okay," I said. There were tears in the corners of her eyes. "What if I asked you to be patient? Would you be standing up for her?" "She’s my boss." "You’re not." I turned my attention back to her. How many weeks, months or years had it been since I’d actually been home? I could hardly tell with her, back in the good times, but I’d had my share of bad days, weeks when I hadn’t been home with Leviathan. I could, though, relate to her situation. When I’d been away from home, my mom had been working two jobs to make ends meet, and I’d drifted back to my mom and then to school, leaving my homework to finish it. When I had returned, things hadn’t been the same. In classes, my grades had plummeted, and my teachers had either gone quiet, or they’d targeted other kids in our block to sabotage our block. Tests, essays, grades lost to peers who got it wrong on an exam, the list went on. I could still relate to Rachel in that she’d been left behind, and yet she’d still done it. Did I look like Rachel to her mom and dad? I looked to Armsmaster. "It’s not right," Armsmaster said. "You can’t trust everyone. Including your own teammate," Rachel retorted, "Clockblocker is already here. You can say whatever you want, but I’m guaranteed we’ll be attacked, we’ll get arrested, and then we’ll go to some unstable parahuman, who might be a villain, or we’ll wind up homeless, or dead, or both." Armsmaster frowned, but he didn’t speak. "Do you really think I’d catch that from my roommate?" Rachel asked, her voice just as blunt. "I was there." Armsmaster shook his head. "Hard to see how." "The point is, we can’t be sure that everything Clockblocker said was entirely accurate. From what we know about them, they have powers we can’t really replicate, and from what little we know about them, they’ve been known to go after people who’ve disappointed them. That’s no small matter when we’re dealing in parahumans." "If you say so." "If I told you they’d go after any Parahuman that got near me, you’d be pissed. We’ve got the other shoe dropped, and it looks like we’re not going to get away unscathed. Which means we’re fucked." "And the other shoe dropped, Rachel, with the Nine-" Armsmaster interrupted her with a wave of his cape. "Don’t make me get sick." Rachel groaned. The thought of going back to old habits caught her off guard. "I know you can’t leave, now," Armsmaster said. "But if I’m being honest, I might even leave if I could get away before the Nine get there. Can you imagine what it would be like, being in their clutches? The pain, the suffering, the death, all of that… if you could go on any of those missions between time you’d get powers, you’d be begging to be traded to them for some lowly hostage. Borrow a phrase from Coil, use some of that sick joke they keep making about the human condition. Sell them a snake oil salesman. They’d trade you one of theirs. The risks, the cost of failure if they don’t get what they want from you, how much your life would suck ======== SAMPLE 21 ======== his mouth, and took the time to remove my hand from where she’d draped my arms around it. My hands, my face, I took it all in, and I felt it all drop away in an instant. "Thank you," I said. "Really." My dad gave me a small nod. "I’ll have to keep this as short a notice as possible, so try to catch some food out of the freezer," Rachel said. "When you’re not working. The office doesn’t have enough people." "I understand," I said. "Your friends?" my dad asked. "They’re okay?" I shook my head. "Rachel, you know your friends." "They’re hurt. It’s hard to find anyone willing to take them." "I’ll see what I can do." "Good luck. If you need to get away from the city to-" "See what?" "I get it. The idea of maybe going back. Maybe, if you’re lucky, you can find a school, maybe a job. Maybe a college. But not now." She nodded. I went on, "And I get the point you’re making. Maybe I look back, look at where I’d be right now, and I could use my resume to see if anyone would take me seriously if I did that." She glanced down at her cell phone. "Okay." "The phone call?" "My dad." "Okay." "I can’t sleep, you know," she said. "I don’t sleep, you know." "I know," I said. "But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t need my mind turned to tomorrow, or whatever. I’m worried. I’m worried about my dad, and I can’t talk to him right now, because I have to be at the hospital. I went to that therapist thing and he said that even though I didn’t feel better, I was still improving, and I sort of want to believe him, because I can’t really be proactive like this. But I’m scared. I’m worried I’ll fail, that I’ll fail, but I want to do something, and I don’t want to do it all in one go. I have nobody to thank, besides me, and I feel like I’m a failure." She looked down at her feet and rubbed her hands where she’d stitched her mouth. "Sorry." "It’s okay," I said. I’d almost forgotten she existed, after the success of the prank calls. Couldn’t believe she was even thinking about me. I was surprised she even gave me the benefit of a doubt. "Just… want to make sure I’m okay?" She nodded. She made her way to the nurse’s station, then placed her elbows on the counter and straightened. I was glad to see she wasn’t slouching or slouching to get a better position. "Worried?" "No," she said. She hugged herself to her chest. "Just… it’s… it’s hard to explain, and I think I probably won’t be able to if I don’t get a good therapist. I feel like I’m nine or ten years younger than I am, and that’s even before I get my powers. It’s all been a full nine or ten years, and I haven’t had any power besides my powers." "Your powers probably wouldn’t kick in until you got older," I said. "Yeah," she said. She looked away, and her eyes didn’t change. "But… I think it’s better I know now. Better that I know I’ll probably never have powers, because they’re a waste of my time, and there’s the whole, ‘if only you thought I’d get powers’ angle to it." "It’s not that bad," I said. "So long as you’re at least somewhat functional, it’s better that I know now, and maybe that’s slightly counterintuitive. I didn’t figure anything out until I had my powers, so maybe it’s good to know what the pros and cons would be, without having to go out of my way to figure them out on my own." ======== SAMPLE 22 ======== his arm. "No. Why?" "Cauldron’s experiments with parahumans has been well documented. Parahumans have seen change in how they were around people, in the way they were viewed. One study even went so far as to label it a form of antisocial or even criminal deviancy. It led some to think that maybe, just maybe, this might be a temporary state for Cauldron, and maybe even a way for them to get a second trigger event… or maybe they could control the powers they got." "Can you control them?" He raised one hand, and I felt a wave of disgust sweep over him. "I can’t. It’s counter-intuitive. Even something as minor as holding back, it’s like a parent holding back their child. They’re putting them in grave danger." "You think they’re deliberately trying to hurt you?" "I think so. Probably. But no. I think it’s a case of self-serving altruism versus self-serving profit. Profit at a price." "The price you’re willing to pay for self-preservation and profit-making are very real, and it’s not pretty." "It is," he admitted. "And I think you’d be wrong in how you see it." "I see it very differently. I’m trying to do more good than harm. Helping others is one thing. But helping others is more noble, more vital than anything I can think of. For me, it’s about all the others I’ve helped. My own people. The Law. The Protectorate. The whole world." "You think you’re noble, you’re vital?" "I think of my people when I think of worth, and they rank pretty highly in the eyes of the law itself, but they’re not top of the pile. They’re not even in the top-six most important people in the world. They’re not even in the top-ten most important people in the world. If you don’t believe me, ask yourself what your number would be if you placed them all in a head-to-head competition against each other. You’d have a hard time coming up with a contest that didn’t favor the Law. At the very least, you’d have a hard time finding one." "You think they’re ranked pretty highly, then?" "If you go by who they are and the things they do, I- I can’t think of many that would come to mind. You or I, or there should be a person in that crowd. If you ranked the top half of the top-ten most important people in the world by their powers and where they rank based on that, I’d say Cauldron at the top." "What about people like Dean?" I asked. "You saw him on the news. Do you know where he was?" "I know exactly where he was," Regent answered, sounding irritated. "We were the only ones out there, so there was a lot of media in the area. Media with cameras. Media that captured Dean’s every move, recording every interaction with violence and death. Dean is pretty much the poster child for what I’m talking about, and I’m sure the public saw why. They said he has a temper, which is probably how they caught on." "Yeah," Tattletale said. I took a deep breath. Had to get my thoughts in order. "And maybe Cauldron did use a tool or a device to control certain individuals or groups, so they had a way of putting this into motion before the real reason was put into motion?" "In a way," Tattletale said. She frowned, "No. That’d be very strange, and it doesn’t mesh with how this worked, in any event. But it could be that if we tried that, Cauldron might be using some countermeasure or mechanism to keep us from getting what we needed." "That’s not really where we stand," I responded. "Dean’s going to kill you, or someone else will. But we have to consider that it’s not entirely out of their hands. They could have prepared this, or they could have manipulated it, or people might have guessed what was going on and taken measures, even if they weren’t aware they were taking it out on us." I saw Tattletale nod. I thought of Dean. He was the last to speak, giving a speech at the fundraiser. "You might ======== SAMPLE 23 ======== his daughter. The door closed, and I had seconds to think. "Taylor Hebert," it said. There was a mistake in my thoughts. A thought had gone through my head, as I’d thought of him last night. "Yes," he said. "You’re lying," I said. I tried to tell myself that it was just a minute or two ago that I’d been in a room with Clockblocker, Revel and Vista, and Kid Win had laughed at me. But I couldn’t bring myself to think back. "Maybe you haven’t fully recovered from that last memory, Weaver," Kid Win said. His voice was small. He sounded almost concerned. "Or maybe you’re just tired. But I hope the rest of this doesn’t end in a fatality." "My dad," I said. "Hush, Clockblocker," Kid Win said. He didn’t look at my dad. "There’s more to be done." I nodded slowly. "Do you think you can change people’s minds?" Clockblocker asked. I nodded, turning my head. "I can’t," he said. "I guess that’s good," I said. "So let’s talk solutions," Clockblocker said. "We already have an arrangement. You don’t need to participate in our group’s group." I nodded. "We don’t know what kind of plans they have in mind, but we don’t know their plans either. So let’s talk solutions." I nodded. "I don’t know if you can do this alone," Clockblocker said. "But if you can’t, fine. Whatever you do, don’t say a thing, just don’t show your face. There’s a lot of pissed people in this building." I nodded. "We’ll need to reach out to people somewhere," he said. "The Protectorate, the Wards, the Wards … some people from the Wards, too. We need people who can speak on their behalf." I looked up. "The Wards?" "We’ve already talked with some success about meeting them, getting them on board. The thing that needs to happen is convincing them that they needn’t." "D.Gray-man is dead," Kid Win said. "We should go." I glanced at Clockblocker. "He was supposed to fix it." "With PRT measures," Clockblocker said. "It’s like we’re in rebellion against the law. We can’t go to the police, but we can contact them and talk to them. Can’t we?" "The person we should talk to is Director Piggot," I said. "The woman who’s in charge of the PRT." "Yes," Clockblocker confirmed. "We’d like to get her on board, for one thing," I said. "But first, we have to ask … would she accept a temporary absence?" "The woman in charge of the PRT," Clockblocker said, his voice tight. "No. Not really." "If the woman was willing to step down and agree to a provisional stay of proceedings until a permanent replacement can be found," Vista said. "That would be fine," Clockblocker said. "We could pressure her," I said. "Talk to her, see what sticks." Clockblocker smiled a little, and it made my blood run cold. Vista let go of my hand, and then ran to get the armor panel and handle of the panel. She pressed one hand to her chest, and I could feel the tension as a bar almost popped. If Vista was an ‘okay’, I was an ‘okay’, locked to Piggot, a prisoner. "I would be more than pleased to have you," Clockblocker said, when she was gone. "See, I was thinking we could get you on board. Give you some reprieve, maybe be the first to report when the Endbringers start appearing." "That’s not really what I have," I said. "I have a place I want to be, a way I want to go. You don’t force anyone, not even heroes, to join your side. Be willing to compromise somewhere, if that’s something you’ ======== SAMPLE 24 ======== his foot, as if I was wearing a boot. I realized she was going to give up on me. She had used her power on the gun, and it was broken. No. That wasn’t it. The ‘brute’, she’d also jammed the gun into one of her belt loops, as I’d seen her doing with the knife. The gun was a charm, no doubt intended to herd, to breed. The gun was a trifecta, I realized. She had jammed it into one of her ski pants pockets, then proceeded to knot the pockets together with the same kind of meticulous hand stitching I’d seen her doing with the gun. I realized the gun didn’t belong to her. But who else had this gun? The girl in the forest had one of Krouse’s jackets, but I soon saw the pattern of the stitching to her right hip matched to the same kind of pattern that I had on her left arm. I could see the same kind of pattern through the rain. Krouse was talking to the boy with the plastic surgery. "I think you can do better than this. How old are you?" "Fifteen," he said. "Forty two." "Twenty-seven." "Twenty-seven, then." I didn’t have much time left before the fight started. With the fight already in progress, and the possibility of the injury needing to be severe, I knew I wouldn’t be able to stay here and watch it. I wanted to, but I wasn’t sure how. I’d have to trust that whatever the outcome was, I wouldn’t be harmed. "Let’s go," I whispered, to my swarm. The man in power armor limped his way to the edge of the roof. He reached out with his hand, and I could see the blades extending from the sleeve of his glove. He extended a gauntlet, and a swarm moved to catch it. It skimmed the surface of the water, and I could feel the harsh pain in my head. I swam out of reach, up to the surface, and found myself staring at a piece of floating debris. The knife. I could see the weapon through the swarm, through the rain, but I couldn’t see why it was there. I opened fire, striking the knife with one recoiling mouthful of venom. It hit the water, and vaporized in the air. I couldn’t control the speed of the attack, so I threw myself to the ground. The man in the forest made a desperate attempt to run, but was hemmed in by the bugs below. He staggered, collapsed, and was covered in flowing water. If I’d known what I’d know about this ‘Dragonfly’… "Skitter!" I shouted, raising my voice to be heard over the splashing water. The woman in the helicopter spoke, and I could almost hear her, calm my nerves, say, "I’m sorry. He got away. We just pulled him out of the water. He should be okay." I turned to leave, and she only lowered her voice, "We’re going to give chase. We saw him." I wasn’t sure I believed her. I left the men and the woman in the back of the helicopter behind, to lead the others to safety once again. I looked around me once more. The fight was over, and I’d done something significant. Something that had huge consequences. I was out of time, and I didn’t trust anyone else with what I needed. But I didn’t have the time to make up my own mind. I reached behind my back, felt under my armor, beneath the layers of fabric and bits of armor that made up my costume. I pulled it all off, and on top of it all, I had to make do. I had to use my bugs to pull off the costume they’d partially molded into, then begin the process of creating the mechanical arm, the leg, the knee-joint and the arm that would eventually be my launcher. In the process, I’d have to cover the back of Trickster’s body. I started with where I’d least expected it to happen. The area where I’d hidden my power faded. The last scraps of knowledge I’d retrieved didn’t make sense. It was as though my brain had been a big blank, a place where the fog and all the details just vanished. My bugs ======== SAMPLE 25 ======== his arm. There were other moments where he was unable to move his arm. Blades of metal whirled in his hand. His fingers flailed as he struggled to bend it to either side so it wouldn’t sever his hand, or to twist his arm so it wouldn’t be bent at ninety-degree angles. He had to move his hand, and every second that passed was precious, because the man in the suit, who was holding a large mechanical arm, slowly closed the distance. Scion dodged the attacks, but his arm was slowly deformed, and he stumbled forward, putting himself in more danger. With the speed he moved, Scion almost didn’t count. "S-" The words spilled out of his mouth, but they were unsteady. Couldn’t see, couldn’t hear. A forcefield appeared just in front of him. It was weaker than the forcefield he’d used to trip up Hope, but it was still stronger than he’d been forced to resort to. He moved the winged arm in an almost casual way, feeling it bend, then snap back to its original configuration. Hope had used her power to leap forward, and the arm that was once a point blank weapon was gone, replaced by an extension of Hope’s larger leg. He lunged, catching Hope around the throat with one claw. She bounced backwards, her eyes shining with tears. Scion caught her around the chest with the claw again. He reached the edge of the rooftop, when he didn’t have the strength to avoid the incoming blade. He stabbed the blade between Hope’s legs, and she fell. He took advantage of the lack of momentum to rake the girl clear of the blade’s path. Hope was caught half-again, and he didn’t even have the mean to escape. He reached out, and she got a hand to lift. Hope’s hand was gone, her own arm reduced to a shredded stump. He dusted himself off and reached out for the girl, using the help of one arm to keep her standing, one hand to dab at her eyes. He didn’t have the energy, the strength, to fight, to use his power. The hand that wasn’t ruined fell to the ground. He stood, backing up until he was almost looking toward the portal, then sprinting towards it. The winged girl. Did that count as a third attempt at getting to Hope? Where was the restraint? He could sense others running forward, but he had few if any of them to go forward to help, and all seemed to matter was getting to the portal, and getting away. With his group moving forward, the winged girl was trapped, thrown into the crowd. Scion caught her head and shoulder around the neck, then used his forcefield to keep her from falling. She opened her mouth to scream, but the wind caught her and she started speaking once again. Screamers from some distant land reached him. He reached out, and all contact was severed. The girl was his for a long time, a burden lifted. He felt her blood warm his hands. He had his, now. He could see her, lying in the water, her face a single mark of stress, her neck a mess of blood and ice where she’d been thrown. So many capes dead. He had help, and he’d be looking for it. ■ Calvert descended the stairs just in front of the door to the observation gallery. Clockblocker was checking the panel with his crutches. The portal… there was no panel. Only a metal briefcase, sealed shut with keyring. Too much damage done. He’d hoped to lure the Slaughterhouse Nine out with a small diversion, getting Trickster to flank them, but something had gone wrong. Not enough time left for Calvert to close the door before the Nine made their move. The danger level was lowered. Calvert could see the expression on the faces of the heroes as the number dropped from three to two. The Nine made their move. They shifted closer to one another, their blades white and silver. The camera showed the last figure they’d show in the briefest of seconds before the briefest of windows, before the briefest of flashes. Vista. White cloak, a white bodysuit, no mask. Gold chains with green dots, as dense as steel. Parian’s image was a blur as she appeared. The scene was so bizarre that Calvert was momentarily speechless. His personal army was a fraction smaller. They had marched through the last wave of people, but now they ======== SAMPLE 26 ======== his father, and he thought of the time he spent at the house of one of his favorite men, where it had all been peaceful and comfortable. He’d never been more than an ordinary man, but somehow, with how everything had unfolded, he’d somehow become something that was nothing. He took hold of the chain that was wound around her throat, and he hurried to run from the house. He pulled open the door and ran as fast as he could go, keeping out of sight of the woman. He stopped when he was just a short distance from her. "I’m not a monster," he said, keeping his voice low. She was alive, but she was unconscious. She was breathing, but her chest didn’t seem to be expanding with each heartbeat. "You are not a monster. Not at all." She opened her mouth to scream something else, but he cut her off before she could. He held her face to the ground, and then he waited for the moment she could no longer speak. "I know it’s a little extreme," he said, "But it works. The victim can’t fight back if she doesn’t have weapons. You have to give up or let her win." His plan had worked only about half the time, but she understood him as a result. It wasn’t enough, of course, and she knew it was the opposite, but they seemed to know it was enough, just from the way they moved. "I want you to think about what happens if you let her have it. The pain, the fever, it makes you think, brings up bad memories. The woman upstairs has power, and I know she’s controlling you, so maybe she has an idea of what you think." He nodded once. She looked away. "But you have to let her have it. You can’t win." "I will lose, sir." "But you won’t let her have it, and even if you do, I won’t be there to help you. If you don’t let her have it, I’ll behead your hands and feet, I’ll drag you into the storm drain, and I’ll never let you look up again." Rey watched as her head slumped, the movement jerky in the exaggerated movements. "Sir-" she said, lamely. "You’ll never change," he said. "You’re stuck like this because you were born evil. I’m about to kick someone’s ass, and that’s not something I’d do lightly. Sir." She was still talking, but he could see the lines of her neck and chin, the slack in her jaw. "If you let me have it, sir, I’d let him have it. It would erase any possible doubts anyone had that you were indeed a worthy adversary. When’s you next set to face someone in person, sir, would you let me see…?" "No, sir." He watched her head waver fractionally as she tried to force her eyes to work together, the movements jerky. "I’m listening, little brother," he said. He raised his voice a little, to be heard over the whine of her muscles. She didn’t respond. Instead, she lowered her head so he could repeat the word aloud. "…AND if you don’t let me have it, I’d kill you. It would be the easiest way to kill you, sir." Again, the rambling spoken words. He watched her carefully, then raised his voice a cajon to be heard over the whine of her muscles. "Now, little brother, I’m going to do you a favor and leave you alone if I use my power. But I’m going to get you another favor, and I’d hate to leave this conversation alone, because I really don’t like you any more than you liked me. That’s a fact, do you hear me?" She gave him a reaction, like he was speaking to a blind person. Her lips opened, and he could see the lines separating the softness from the seriousness she was in the face of the evidence. "You’d be lying," he said, adding, "Unless you want me to tell you the truth?" She didn’t say a word. He felt a hand rest on his shoulder. He turned to leave, and she stopped him. "Are you going to fight me?" "No. I� ======== SAMPLE 27 ======== his. She met my eyes. "There’s no way to know how bad it is, when there isn’t even a full understanding of what’s going on. We barely know how the system is supposed to work, half the time. Even then, we often don’t know enough to react even if we knew. Worse, it’s often hard to know how or when to act. We can’t be sure that what we’re doing is right. Asking a question that can’t be answered, like Lung asked me, or asking me to stop treating people like we’d be asking him to, so I’ll be okay, it just leaves me in a bad light, not just because I’m asking for a damnable offense, but because what I’m asking for is damnable. Can we possibly expect anyone to do more? The whole reason I’m even joining this team is because I’m scared." "You don’t know?" "Nobody does. I’m the least of the problems," Jessica frowned. "You should know," Tattletale said, "That as long as you keep doing what you’re doing, nobody will ever be able to truly contact you, like they used to be able to. The same goes for people who are closest to you, if-" Tattletale stopped as Miss Militia raised a rifle to her head. She scowled and pointed it at us. "It’s kind of fucked up," Jessica sighed. "Maybe it’s not a bad thing, if we’re talking about the future of civilization. But we’re dealing with the big hitters, and a lot of people are having trouble getting back up to speed. You’re pretty much limited to the people we’ve got on the team, which isn’t much, if you consider Tattletale, Trickster, Grue and Shadow Stalker. We got in trouble with the local Wards because people were spreading fake news about us." "Fake news?" Grue asked. "I don’t get it." "I saw it on TV," Jessica said. "Everyone knew. Colin is a brilliant guy, he knows what he’s doing. But we’re a little further along than most in terms of getting our stuff online, and things are slower in way of getting the word out. Stuff is slow because there’s no way to get people to click, there’s no way to get information to people with doubts, no way to get things aired on network television. They put us on the website, they wait, and then they come to you." "And the internet breaks down," Miss Militia cut in. "Eidolon’s going to have a hard time adjusting to the slower loading sites. You guys have your own issues with the portal on the moon." "No," Jessica said. "It’s not. It’s cooler. But yeah. Cool. It’s cool. Cool, you’re right. I was watching the news. There’s people from across the country making noise about the D.D.I. for real, being very real about it. They’re not happy-" "They’re not being facetious about anything," Jessica said. "All of the rest of us are. All of us are doing a terrible job of concealing the fact. You know what we’re up against. The Endbringers, the Slaughterhouse Nine, the End of the World, the Xenu case, the PRT, the Undersiders, and the League. It’s a war within our organization. You know how they put it on the website? Six bad days is the limit before something goes wrong. The heroes will come to help us find the problem." Tattletale said, "They’re being very reasonable. Even if we assume the end of the world is inevitable, and the PRT is set to wipe us out with one or two very small crimes, they’re talking about mitigating the damage. The portal goes up, the D.D.I. gets taken offline, and no one gets hurt, which is what the website says they expect. They mention that they’ll wipe us out if we don’t let people with power go to jail. Which might be all they need. They have a record for this, I think. They’re being realistic." "But it’s still criminal negligence," Miss Militia pointed out, "If they pull a fast one and they take out one of the Undersiders or the Nine, then we ======== SAMPLE 28 ======== his girl was like that. "I’m sorry. This isn’t how I wanted to start things," he said. She shook her head, "You said this was how I wanted things to go, didn’t you? Like this?" "Yes," he said. She nodded. Bashir took her hand, and they stepped through the portal. He opened the door, and he and Bitch stepped out into the hallways. Golem was trying to figure out a way to hide his reaction when he saw Bitch holding the door open for him. She smiled, and he realized she was holding a baseball bat. Not a threat. "Oh… hey," he said. He glanced at Rachel, who was standing by the door, her arms folded. Rachel’s attention was on the laptop that was positioned at her side. "Hey. I’m Taylor." She smiled, and then she snarled a few words, making it clear she didn’t care in the least. "Hey," he said, in a lower voice. "It’s good to hear you were okay." "Hm?" "Sick. You were in the alleyway with the Slaughterhouse Nine, weren’t you? No injuries?" "Dead," Rachel answered. "Well," he said, moving his hand so she was staring at the laptop, "It’s good to hear that. Does the name Taylor mean anything to you?" "Taylor. Games." He looked around, saw the reactions from the others. Grue, Imp, Parian, Faultline, Purity… Why is everyone so angry? Bakuda might have been repressed, but the anger was still there. It was a fucking sick fucking coincidence that this would work. He forced a smile. "Can we finish this bit? Have me read some fan letters?" "Sure." He turned back to the laptop. "I’ll go, and we finish the others. Maybe we watch television until we’re ready to retire, or whatever. You can relax for a bit, it’ll be nice to have the night off." "It’s kind of obligatory, to go with your old buddy, Regent," Tattletale said. "They’re sort of mandatory at certain points in your life, whether it’s the point where you’re graduating high school, becoming a superhero or getting your powers." "It was a joke," Regent said. She shook her head. "I’ll go as well. It’ll feel nicer." He looked her way. Her face was a little more teary, but she was looking away. "We’re here to help you, aren’t we?" "Yeah. I got this bike stolen, and Coil’s blaming you for the fact that I put it in a box." "I was in the middle of helping Grue get it fixed," Regent said. "You go all out and try to help, and you miss a few critical pieces." "I tried," she said. "Hey. You want to go to Coil’s place?" "Yeah. But I need to make a few calls first." "Alright, let’s see…" He punched the laptop screen. "Holy shit. Damn. Coil’s bitch." "Don’t you get it? If I’d had access to better information, I would have done different things." "So we go," Imp said, not looking at Regent. "All good. Let’s go." They passed by Trickster, and Imp said, "He just arrived." Regent glanced at the laptop, then at the unconscious Kid Win. Then he looked at them. They didn’t respond. "Alright," Imp said, "Let’s go." They moved down the hallway, Imp on the left, Kid Win on the right. Coil was sitting on the corner of the third floor, books thrown around him. The other members of the Wards were scattered around him, but they didn’t have the presence or presence effect he did. A distraction was needed. Kid Win had a tablet out, Kid Win handed it to Imp. "Who has it?" Imp asked. "Jacques Palmer, the guy who made the video. Owner of the photography business." "Okay," Imp said. She glanced at the cameras that were trained on them ======== SAMPLE 29 ======== his father’s side, even a little, that there was some inside of him that was killing to be taken in, if I was judging right. It was the worst case scenarios where his father was doing something that I couldn’t account for, that made me particularly uncomfortable. There was the case of the girl who had been kidnapped from the hospital bed, and there was Grue’s. I knew that Tattletale had probably played some role in getting these people ‘came’’ to us. It was hard to say how much of it was Tattletale’s power, how much was her own warped mind, and how much was him. But Tattletale had a way of putting things together that made it hard to prove or disprove, especially when all of the hard evidence was out there. In the end, I had to do what I could to salvage what I could. I pulled the plug that kept the computer’s core from going to Hell. I turned the lights off, left them sitting in the dark, and then started the siren. I could feel the siren’s wake up as alarms went off. The windows were open, but they smelled faintly of smoke. I made sure to turn the windows inward so the sirens wouldn’d be out of my range of hearing. Then I got the cops out of the way so I could start the siren with the officer holding the alarm button down. "We cut you open," the siren started. "We’ll give you emergency medical care if you can show us your arms." I looked at the officer in the front seat. He was older, and the metal of his face had chiseled edges, like an old-fashioned dentist’s chair. He wasn’t complaining, but he wasn’t complaining either. He’d been with the company for more than a month, he knew what to do, and this was his first time out in a police car. He wouldn’t get much farther than that before the sirens woke him up. "I’m okay," I said. My voice was shaky, it didn’t quite fit the accent I tried to pick, but I sounded more like a five year old than an officer on the streets. "You’ve got a punctured lung, a punctured kidney, blood in your mouth, and a punctured stomach." I looked down at my hands. Everything in there was raw and sticky, with blood in my mouth and stomach, but there was nothing I could do to keep it that way. I took a deep breath, forced myself to relax a bit, and told the officer, "I’m okay." The siren blared, and I suppressed a groan. I only half-heard her word, "If you guys get this far, you better fucking help me." I pulled a blanket over my head, tucked my hair behind my ear, and pressed the back of my jacket against my chest. The siren continued, blaring. "This can be a first for you," someone spoke, from above us. "You know how paramedics tend to put a lot of stock in the fact that you’ve got a broken arm?" I looked down at my broken arm. I didn’t have it fixed. I could guess how that had gone, but I didn’t want to think about it after being woken by the siren. "Don’t worry," the person at the front of the ambulance said. In a quieter voice, the girl volunteered, "Your arm’s okay." The entire ambulance – my driver, the paramedics at the front, and the girl who took my jacket off – backed away a little. The driver looked a little sheepish. I glanced at my neighbor’s body. Nobody had been hurt that I could see. There was only the look on my dad’s face, the surprise and sympathy I’d inspired him with. He’d been there for what amounted to a broken arm – a hand that wouldn’t have been usable. It sat there, supported by the curb, limp and frail, a half-pound heavier than it had been before. I wasn’t quite sure what to say or do. My thoughts turned to the car that had been stopped longer than the one in the alleyway. Were there any valuables in the car, if there were? Anything to pay my fare? Anything to help cover my own expenses? The lights flickered out as I opened the car door for him. He didn’t seem to react as the lights came on, but I figured he didn’t want to be ======== SAMPLE 30 ======== his mouth, before she took the lead. She held the key with her other hand, and the door opened, startling her. She was nearly naked where she’d dropped the key, her arms and legs exposed. She couldn’t quite believe that her plan had gone ahead. It had, had very nearly, but she’d failed to get everything she wanted, she’d gotten only a few perverted henchmen along for the ride, and she hadn’t gotten nearly what she wanted. She was halfway to the loft when the thought struck her – it couldn’t have been Skitter. She reached for Skitter, cupping her hand around the same hand that held the suitcase, the carpet, the light posts and the second hand heater. She gave it a good tug, and then led the way to the loft. Standing in the kitchenette, Amy realized with a painful kind of disappointment that she would have to get into the kitchen. She was halfway done tidying the plates, set them on the counter, when she heard the kitchen door open. Lisa came down the stairs after her. Amy knew that her plan had backfired – she had to get home before Skitter had a chance to start fucking with the city – so she was already in the living room, stripping out of the jeans she wore. Her hair was a bit too long, and she was carrying too much. Her body, its curves and its muscles, were already showing through her clothes. "Amy?" Lisa asked. How far did she come? Amy shrugged. She couldn’t have said it, but she thought it was pretty fucked up that her parents were paying attention to her. It made her feel weird, that something was bothering her that wasn’t her fault. It made her wonder why. Why was she like this? "Want to go home, Taylor?" Lisa asked. "Yeah, I guess." "Are you okay?" "Hm?" Lisa gave her a hand to help her up, and Amy shushed her. She was tempted to say that it was kind of creepy, that her parents were paying more attention to her than she was to them, but she didn’t dare. "It’s good to see you hanging around," Lisa said, "You hurt when you were down. You’re in better shape than your wife was, for the record." "Yeah," Amy replied. She was careful to stay out of Lisa’s light as she exited the living room. She walked briskly to the kitchen, fished in an old fashioned dishpan, and retrieved a single slice of pizza. Turning it, she bent over and retrieved a bag of candy – blueberry jam, marshmallows, pink grape, strawberry – from the dish. "So, what brings you back?" "I’ve got stuff to take care of," Amy said, turning to leave. "I’m going to see my dad for a bit, then I’ll see Skitter for a bit. I figure I’ll spend the night. Sorry if I-" "It’s fine," she said, hurrying to follow. Leaving the stove, she stripped out of her jeans, a T-shirt and fleece to cover her upper body. She put her backpack and spare keys in the dishwasher, then threw the clothes on the hob and headed out the door. The sun was only now rising, and Amy was already halfway into the kitchen, using the open door for a walk in. "You going to be okay, making pizza?" "I am not. But I’d be glad to." "Okay," she said, glancing over her shoulder, "Where do you want to spend the night?" "There’s a hotel in the area, and since I’m working from home, I’ll be picking up my stuff from the loft, then driving to a friend’s for a night in before I come back. Bummer, but it’ll be easier than paying a visit to the cops." "A team of cops will be on the scene to question you." "Thank you," she said, even as she felt like she was completely and utterly against the idea. "It’s fine. Just know that they’ll ask you to give the details of what happened with my dad. They’ll use that until they have evidence that we both know to lie." "Do you want to call your father?" "I do." "If he’s alive, he’s at the hospital. If he’s not, it’s probably a serious accident